Essential Equipment

[blacklab]

Hey Guys,

Almost done with my SOF Chiller. Has anyone ever used a material other than ice (i.e. freeze packs, etc.) in order to maintain fermentation temps with better results? Real estate is limited in my freezer and gallon jugs are quite large. Also wondering if the packs thaw more slowly than ice does (respective to volume, I suppose) Thanks in advance.

Definitely not able to to assemble a Peltier device - beer has destroyed that part of my brain already.

Welcome to the board.

[Steve Urquell]

It's not so much a problem due to pressure, as a fermenter properly equipped with an airlock will vent almost all pressure generated by your wort's evolution of CO2. It is kind of a pain to clean/sanitize after sitting in sticky beer for a couple weeks though. It could become a bacterial breeding ground if not cleaned thoroughly. Additionally, a lot of those buckets with spigots leak ever so slightly. Not a problem when you only have your beer in there for an hour or so, but over the course of a week it could leak enough to make a mess on your countertop (or wherever you have it).

I use spigots on all my primary/secondary buckets w/o any probs,leaking,etc.
When fermentation /secondary is done I will take the spigot off the bucket,pop the red or blue part out of the spigot body,wash it,and then it soaks in starsan(in pieces) until its next use.Before opening the spigot for transfer, I will turn the nozzle up and fill it with starsan to kill any bugs that could be lurking inside.

[adrock]

There you go, shrekfx. More than one way to skin a cat, as they say. Almost nothing is unerrant truth in the world of homebrewing...just a bunch of opinions.

[Steve Urquell]

I agree w/ adrock though.You have to take care with the spigots or they will be a breeding ground for infection.

[shrekfx]

O.k. so dont really bother with using a pale with spigot for primary, but bottling is good to have. got ya.

[Common]

When I bottle I attached a tube/hose to the spigot and to a bottle filler. The bottle filler is awesome IMO. It has a pin, and when you put it in the bottle and touch it to the bottom it starts filling from the bottom, and when it gets to the top lift up and it will immediately stop. The filler itself will create the right amount of headspace. Makes bottling a little easier.

[Green Goblin]

Starting Up is VERY intimidating, but relax and CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN your equipment. I would recommend, as a next investment, is a wort chiller at least. They go for 60-80 bucks, but I made mine out of some home depot supplies for around 25 bucks and it does a hell of a job! Just a 25 foot coil of 1/4" copper tubing and some fittings to connect to sink/hose hookup. Wrap the copper around a 2 liter soda bottle and that is a pretty good diameter. It chills your wort down very quickly. with it i timed mine at 12 minutes from 160 degrees down to 90. Without it, I was doing Ye Old ice bath and that was taking 20-30 minutes to get it down to 100. Just dip it in your boiling water before brewing, and rinse good with hot water right after your done chilling, and it should last. i havnt had any problems at all with mine. Was even thinking about doing a double coil for faster chills. Something to think about if you are a DIY'er like me. Good Luck!

[Brewtones]

I made mine out of some home depot supplies for around 25 bucks and it does a hell of a job! Just a 25 foot coil of 1/4" copper tubing and some fittings to connect to sink/hose hookup. Wrap the copper around a 2 liter soda bottle and that is a pretty good diameter. It chills your wort down very quickly. with it i timed mine at 12 minutes from 160 degrees down to 90.

Awesome idea thanks for the DIY I was gonna drop $75 bucks on a chiller on friday

Cheers!

[Beezy]

I bought a chiller on Amazon. Didn't cost me much more than the materials would have. I don't like it very much though. Doesn't work quick enough for me. I still need to do an ice bath anyway. I'm thinking
eventually either a therminator. Or do a whirlpool chiller but that seems like it would be a hassle.

[moontractor]

I'm not too terribly impressed with my immersion chiller either. It cools the wort down to about 100 pretty quickly, but after that, the closer it gets to the tap-water temp it's exponentially more useless. At around 100 or so the wort goes in the freezer. between the two, it works out all right i guess.